Oil is a nonrenewable natural resource having great importance to the industrialized world. The increased demand for and decreasing supplies of conventional oil has led to the development of alternate sources of oil such as bitumen from oil sands and to a search for more efficient methods for recovery of bitumen from oil sands. Some of the bitumen recovery methods generate significant amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which can add upwards of 25% to the greenhouse gas emissions from use of the fuels that are ultimately refined from these alternate source of hydrocarbons.
Current Methods of Recovering Bitumen from Oil Sands